


and from your lips she drew the hallelujah

by reginasmills



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: 6x10 alternate ending aka they went through the damn portal, F/F, because honestly who isn't in love with soft!regina, featuring soft!regina, mostly fluff with a dash of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 05:21:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8877574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reginasmills/pseuds/reginasmills
Summary: Alternate 6x10 ending, where they went through the portal and went back to Storybrooke. Mostly fluff, with just a dash of angst!





	

Her hand is still wrapped around Regina’s as they hurtle through the swirling portal, and all she can think of is how _right_ this feels, how her hand in Regina’s feels like coming home even before they’ve reached Storybrooke. Then, they are tumbling onto rough asphalt and she’s blinking in the brightness of the street lights, and amidst all the chaos, Regina’s hand is, somehow, still tucked in hers. For a brief moment, she feels oddly safe _,_ notwithstanding her _bloody death sentence_ , and then Regina is disentangling herself from her, and that feeling of safety vanishes into the night, just as quickly as it came, leaving an indescribable pang of _something_ in her chest. Regina is standing, smoothing out her coat, and Emma doesn’t realise that she is still sitting on the road until she catches Regina’s raised eyebrow. She fumbles to her feet. Fidgets. And then —

 

“Thank you,” Emma blurts out.

 

Regina blinks, momentarily surprised, before her lips curve upwards, and there’s another pang in Emma’s chest, because Regina, who is kind and soft and brave and strong at the same time, who loves fiercely and whole-heartedly, who fights, who _always_ fights when it matters, shouldn’t have to be _surprised_ when someone thanks her. She reaches, impulsively, for Regina’s hand, and takes it in both of her own. She remembers Regina doing the same on the day Pan’s curse arrived, remembers _my gift to you is good memories, a good life_ , remembers _you’d always have been together_. 

 

“Thank you,” Emma repeats, and she has never meant it more. 

 

Regina’s smile widens in response, _bright_ and _open_ and _free,_ and Emma can feel her heart going _thump-thump-thump,_ feel the warmth unfurling in her chest. Regina brings her other hand up and folds it gently over Emma’s. 

 

“Thank you,” Regina says, softly, “for finding yourself.” 

 

Emma shakes her head, tightens her grip on Regina’s hands.

 

“Finding me?” she says ruefully, looking down at her feet, “That was all you.” 

 

“Emma —,” Regina says, and her voice is soft, even _softer_ this time. She raises her eyes, meeting Regina’s.

 

Then there’s a shout of “Emma? Emma!” from behind her, and Regina is pulling her hands from Emma’s grasp, drawing _away, away away_. And then there’s the usual flurry of _we were so worried_ and _thank god you’re alright_ , accompanied by tearful hugs (mostly Mary Margaret) and reassurances and chattering. Somewhere amidst the chaos of homecoming, she notices that Regina has disappeared.

 

Regina reappears with Henry in tow at the mandatory welcome back dinner at Granny’s. Their arms are entwined, and Regina is looking at Henry like he is her _whole world_ , and she wonders why she ever thought, even for a moment, that Regina hadn’t loved him. She and Regina end up wedged next to each other in a booth, and if there’s a tingle of warmth that shoots up her spine whenever Regina’s arm brushes against hers, well, Emma puts it up to being _very_ glad that she has her _friend_ back. 

 

She’s trying to fend off Hook’s kisses for what must be the thousandth time, because _she just doesn’t want to kiss today, okay,_ when she spots Regina moving towards the exit. Over the noise in the diner, she can vaguely make out Regina’s excuse to Mary Margaret about how it is way past Henry’s bedtime ( _when really, she knows that Regina just doesn’t like huge gatherings all that much_ ) and watches as the pair slip out of the diner. She knows she shouldn’t follow them, that she at least owes Regina this time alone with Henry, but all of a sudden the party seems too loud and there’s that funny feeling of emptiness within her, which really shouldn’t make sense because this is _home,_ and she’s got her parents and friends and —

 

She doesn’t realise her feet are moving towards the exit until a sudden gust of cold air buffets her face, and she finds herself outside Granny’s. _Alright_ , she thinks, _I just need some fresh air._ Then she’s outside 108 Mifflin Street, and wondering just how in _seven hells_ her brain had decided that needing some fresh air was the equivalent to walking all the way through town to Regina’s _goddamn_ house. She pauses outside the door, one hand poised to knock, before realising that she has absolutely no idea what to say when Regina opens the door, because _really,_ there’s no good explanation for this. 

 

She’s still standing there with a hand poised to knock when the door swings open and _oh no oh no this was definitely a bad idea_ because Regina is standing there, and she’s changed out of her earlier clothes into a deep red jumper that looks so, so _soft,_ and her face, bare of makeup, is wearing a look of gentle puzzlement, and Emma is _fucked, fucked, fucked._

 

“Emma?” Regina’s voice is gentle and warm and Emma finds herself think that she really, _really_ wouldn’t mind if time froze right now. Then Regina’s hand is on her arm and she is guiding her out of the cold and into the warmth of the house, and Emma thinks _if this was some silly romance movie like those that Mary Margaret keeps watching, this would be the moment where I pin her against the wall and kiss her_ , and then she is shaking her head because somehow, having these thoughts about your son’s adoptive mother isn’t exactly normal. 

 

She follows Regina numbly into the house, which is almost completely dark except for a faint glow from one of the bedrooms upstairs ( _Henry_ , she thinks). Regina moves into the study and flicks on a light switch, and the room is bathed in warm light. Reaching for the decanter, Regina busies herself with pouring out apple cider, and Emma thinks of “ _you’re Henry’s birth mother?”_ and of _“how would you like a glass of the best apple cider you’ve ever tasted?”_ . She thinks of the many ways they went wrong before they finally, finally got it right, and she can’t help the smile that tugs at her lips. Then Regina is holding out a glass to her, with that gentle, knowing smile on her lips and that soft, soft understanding in her eyes. She takes it with a grateful smile and _god_ , all she seems capable of around Regina today are grateful smiles.

 

They drink, quietly. Regina reaches to refill her glass for the third time, sets the decanter down, and shifts herself ever so slightly to face Emma.

 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

 

“No,” Emma says stubbornly. And she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to _think_ , let alone talk about the absolute terror she had felt when she had seen the sword hurtling towards Regina’s chest, or how she was so, so scared of losing Regina. She doesn’t want to talk about how she hadn’t managed to break the curse to save her parents from dying, but had somehow broken it when _Regina_ had been about to die. She doesn’t want to think about what that meant, because her parents were her _family_ and Regina was her — 

 

Emma’s eyes drift up towards Regina, who is gazing at her with a sort of tenderness that Emma has only seen when she’s with Henry. Regina, who had been willing to sacrifice herself to find Emma, to _save_ Emma, and —

 

“Why?” the words are out of Emma’s mouth before she can stop them.

 

“Why what?” Regina replies, even though she looks as though she already knows. 

 

_Why did you risk your life to save mine?_ Emma thinks. But the words never make it out of her mouth, because she has somehow managed to cross the room, and she’s kissing Regina, and Regina, _Regina_ , is kissing her _back_. 

 

“I was so afraid,”she chokes out, “back there, that you were going to die, and I couldn’t —,” 

 

Regina lays a gentle hand on her cheek. 

 

“I’m here,” Regina says. Her voice is soft, _so soft_ again, “I’m real, and I’m here.”

 

Then Regina draws her close, and she’s kissing Regina, kissing her again as though they were drowning, as though it was the very last night, as though it were the end of the world. She kisses her with desperation and tenderness and with the force of a reckoning long in coming, and all she can think is that she is finally _home, home, home_.


End file.
